THESE FORUMS NOW CLOSED (read only)

Fun Stuff => CLIKC => Topic started by: notselfcreated on 01 Jul 2007, 11:18

Title: Kubuntu! Feisty Fawn, pretty awesome, wireless woes
Post by: notselfcreated on 01 Jul 2007, 11:18

For some reason , XP on my laptop was seeming terribly slow, even though I always keep the thing clean and running like new with AVG, AdAware, Spybot, Tuneup Utilities, and then a good old Chkdsk + Defrag. It was still taking Firefox whole minutes to load, in spite of having plenty of RAM and all the unnecessary startups turned off.

I got fed up with it, and based on schimmy's suggestion I installed Kubuntu 7.04. It's beautiful, it's gorgeous, it works wonderfully, and if I can get iTunes working in Wine, I can delete my XP partition completely (and un-register it so I can install XP Pro on the next computer I buy instead of Vista).

But, problem: I've spent many hours now trying to fix a widespread bug with networkmanager (in spite of recognizing the hardware and drivers, it fails to connect to my home network. Hangs at 28% "Configuring Device").

So I'm considering downgrading to Dapper Drake (6.06) and hope I don't lose all this wonderful functionality. Stinks that they would release a version that's basically broken for so many people, especially when they're trying to gain some well-deserved respectability. Feisty is FAST and the thought of never having to Defrag again, well, shit.

Anyway, should I go with Dapper Drake or do some of you Linux guys know how to fix my problem with Feisty? (I've looked all over the Web to no avail so far).

Title: Re: Kubuntu! Feisty Fawn, pretty awesome, wireless woes
Post by: Scytale on 02 Jul 2007, 02:47

Welcome to the world of Linux, wireless woes are pretty common, if you want it fixed mail your wireless manufacturer and demand they supply linux drivers (the reason for most poor support is the community has to reverse engineer a lot of drivers, especialy for video cards and wireless because a lot of hardware companies refuse to admit Linux exists).

I'll need a bit more info on your particular wireless card, what chipset is it, how did you configure it are you using madwifi, are you using NDISWrapper, FWcutter etc etc.

I'm not a Ubuntu user, so I'm not sure the differences between Fiestsy and Dapper, but I wouldn't downgrade to an older version, it's very likely your wireelss woes will continue, your much better to have the latest up to date stuff.

A common thing amongst most Linux users is to buy hardware from vendors (like Intel) who release free and open source drivers for their stuff. One vendor I will never touch again is AMD/ATI, who have a woefull track record when it comes to Linux. Nvidia are just as bad but at least their drivers are not buggy half arsed attempts. Wireless companies like broadcom are pretty much the worst of the bunch, they have basically flat out refuse to supply any info about their hardware.

 

Title: Re: Kubuntu! Feisty Fawn, pretty awesome, wireless woes
Post by: notselfcreated on 04 Jul 2007, 01:39

Thanks for the sympathetic ear. Mine is a three year old Averatec 3200 series with a ralink rt1500-based wireless chip. I tried the NDISWrapper route but it didn't change anything. With both native drivers and Windows drivers the behavior is the same: NetworkManager hangs when I try to connect to anything. The hardware is working and active; it can tell me all the information about available networks. It just won't connect. From my forum browsing, people said that this glitch was unique to Ubuntu 7.04.

Unfortunately, as I was using the Kubuntu CD burning software to burn the Kubuntu 6.06 iso, something happened at the end and now my DVD/CDRW drive is completely crapped out. I don't really blame Linux (I blame a combination of Linux and my own eagerness to interrupt a burning-process and take the disc out). But now I'm kind of stuck, being without a drive at all. Blah.

Anyway, I really like Linux so far but I don't know if I want to become a big activist. I'll just wait until something good happens without lifting a finger to make it happen. You know, the bad habits of a Windows user. I am such a shitty community member.

Title: Re: Kubuntu! Feisty Fawn, pretty awesome, wireless woes
Post by: celticgeek on 04 Jul 2007, 09:05

Have you checked out any of the Linux forums?  They usually have fairly decent threads on various problems.

http://www.linuxforums.org/
http://www.linuxforum.com/forums/
http://www.justlinux.com/
http://www.tuxforums.org/forum/index.php
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/

I have wireless problems, too, and I am using CentOS 4.4 at the moment.  I have CentOS 5.0 available, but I haven't tried it out yet.